The Highest Poverty

, by ;
The Highest Poverty by Agamben, Giorgio; Kotsko, Adam, 9780804784061
Note: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
  • ISBN: 9780804784061 | 080478406X
  • Cover: Paperback
  • Copyright: 5/1/2013

  • Rent

    (Recommended)

    $12.98
     
    Term
    Due
    Price
    *This item is part of an exclusive publisher rental program and requires an additional convenience fee. This fee will be reflected in the shopping cart.
  • Buy New

    Usually Ships in 3-5 Business Days

    $19.70
  • eBook

    eTextBook from VitalSource Icon

    Available Instantly

    Online: 1825 Days

    Downloadable: Lifetime Access

    $24.75

What is a rule, if it appears to become confused with life? And what is a human life, if, in every one of its gestures, of its words, and of its silences, it cannot be distinguished from the rule? It is to these questions that Agamben's new book turns by means of an impassioned reading of the fascinating and massive phenomenon of Western monasticism from Pachomius to St. Francis. The book reconstructs in detail the life of the monks with their obsessive attention to temporal articulation and to the Rule, to ascetic techniques and to liturgy. But Agamben's thesis is that the true novelty of monasticism lies not in the confusion between life and norm, but in the discovery of a new dimension, in which "life" as such, perhaps for the first time, is affirmed in its autonomy, and in which the claim of the "highest poverty" and "use" challenges the law in ways that we must still grapple with today. How can we think a form-of-life, that is, a human life released from the grip of law, and a use of bodies and of the world that never becomes an appropriation? How can we think life as something not subject to ownership but only for common use?
Loading Icon

Please wait while the item is added to your bag...
Continue Shopping Button
Checkout Button
Loading Icon
Continue Shopping Button